Amid growing dissatisfaction with the slow pace of recovery, Japan marked the second anniversary Monday of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that left nearly 19,000 people dead or missing and has displaced more than 300,000.

At observances in Tokyo and in still barren towns along the northeastern coast, those gathered bowed their heads in a moment of silence marking the moment, at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the strongest recorded in Japan’s history, struck off the coast.

“I pray that the peaceful lives of those affected can resume as soon as possible,” Emperor Akihito said at a somber memorial service at Tokyo’s National Theater.

Japan has struggled to rebuild communities and clean up radiation from the meltdown of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant triggered by the tsunami. And with all but two of Japan’s nuclear reactors offline, the government has yet to devise a new energy strategy.

Last month, Denver’s Department of Safety fired a deputy sheriff for using racial slurs and harassing inmates and a police sergeant for drinking while in uniform and abandoning a post to have sex with a woman.

A wedding and special events’ planning business has agreed to pay a $200,000 settlement to five employees living in the country illegally after allegedly failing to pay them minimum wages and overtime and discriminating against them because of their race.